I think parody dubs have gotten out of hand just because I don't think anyone is really trying anything new or unique its just "It would be so awesome if this character talked funny, and cussed a lot"

While searching youtube I noticed the dinner scene from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Episode 1 to find to my horror it was from some parody dub where they gave Dio an effeminate voice and I couldn't hit the back button fast enough. Its really kind of bad because now you don't want to search for certain scenes because you don't know if you are going to find a parody dub or the actual scene you want.

The comment about the comic Industry dying really rubbed me the wrong way. Mainly cause it's a complete fallacy. Comic industry is actually doing pretty good ATM better then the anime industry in the states anyway.

I don't want to get all picky, but compared to what they used to be, sales of comic books in the US are trending downwards and have been for some time. Just like all other periodicals, so it's not like I'm singling comics out for abuse, but then again, maybe I am. Comics used to sell in the millions every month - that's a million copies of, say, Uncle Scrooge or Captain Marvel or Superman, every month. As of March 2014 the top selling comic book in the United States sold 114, 000 copies. Those numbers would get you cancelled in the 80s, and that would be press waste for a title in the 50's and 60s. Shonen Jump (Japan) burns through that much paper every week just cleaning the presses.

Heck, I have (really stupid) issues of Superboy from the 1960s starring the League Of Super Pets that sold a million copies. Suck it, 2014 Batman.

Sales of GNs and digital comics have been moving in the opposite direction, but that's a whole different discussion. We're talking 32 page color floppy comics. Unless they get back to entertaining kids, they're on their way o-u-t.

Expecting a comic to sell as much now as in the 1960's is ridiculous. It's a niche/specialty market pretty much like any other nerd culture thing these days.

As for trying to get kids back in, Boom Studios has done decently well with their Adventure Time books, IDW Publishing's My Little Pony comics sold over 1 million comics in less then a year. Both Boom & IDW have done a good job expanding the all-ages/kids comics market over the past couple of years.

I don't want to start a print is dead/ digital is the future debate, I'm sure maybe 50-100 years from now everything will be purely digital, but I don't think physical comics, or physical anything are on the way o-u-t just yet.

That's my point - that comic books used to be mass culture, and now they're niche culture. That they used to sell in the millions, and now they sell in the one hundred thousands, if they're very lucky.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love for comics to be a mass medium again. Nothing would please me more. But I'm not going to pretend it's a vital, healthy industry when the top selling title is barely cracking 100,000 - and #2 on the list didn't crack 95,000. These aren't just bad numbers for the 1960s, these are numbers that would get a book cancelled in the 1970s and the 1980s, and only the non-returnable, retailer-takes-all-the-risk direct market would support them in the 1990s and beyond. It's an industry that survives as a IP generator for Disney and Warner Brothers, controlled by a distributor monopoly, and serviced by struggling small businessmen around the country who are expected to do all the heavy lifting. Guess who paid for that Free Comic Book Day comic you're going to pick up tomorrow? Not Disney or Warner Brothers or Diamond, that's for sure.

OK, now I got a genuinly curious question because the collector in me is curious now.. Getting away from comics for abit. Where do you see things like the Anime & Toy industries in the states say 15-20 years from now?

Sorry to switch topics, but I just wanted to thank Dave for an interesting episode. AWA 4 was my first con, and I kept going until I moved north in 2008. I kept all my old con guides because I always really liked the introductory notes from Dave, particularly for AWA 6 which used a "punk rock" theme and called for a return to the DIY ethos of the earlier anime fandom… please allow me to transcribe.

Quote:

WHY PUNK ROCK?

In the six years we've been around, we've seen anime go from being a slightly weird cult to a full-blown youth culture movement. Sure, we've always known that anime was/were created and marketed by gigantic multinational corporations, but it was easy to ignore that fact when we had to import and translate it ourselves, or dig up tapes of American versions through underground tape-trading networks. Now that Japanese cartoons are big business and have become a cash cow for those savvy enough to exploit this cargo cult, the remaining fans from the old days are left with a crisis of confidence. Is anime fandom doomed to coagulate into lazy consumers, satisfied with watching whatever bone gets tossed their way?

This program book says no. We're advocating a RETURN to the do-it-yourself roots of anime fandom. We say find what you like and go get it. If it hasn't been released over here, watch it in japanese. If the anime studios aren't making what you like anymore, ignore them and get the old stuff. If you've seen it all, make your own, or make it better. Don't let some corporate suit control your input; fandom is a state of being, not a complacent end result.

Expecting a comic to sell as much now as in the 1960's is ridiculous. It's a niche/specialty market pretty much like any other nerd culture thing these days.

The problem is that comics don't exist in a vacuum. Avengers made a billion dollars at the box office and comics are trending downwards? They should be selling a lot more, but then don't and that's a problem the industry has to face.

That AWA 6 program book was the best!! Everybody hated it. This is part of why it's probably a good thing I'm not involved in top-level decision making at the show any more. It's one thing to be goofy and provocative when we're just doing our own thing, but being the only anime con in town, the truth is a lot of people are depending on it to be The Anime Con They're Able To Go To, and they aren't really that interested in our fan-identity crisis.

I do miss the freewheeling guerrilla-marketing of the early AWAs. Our promotional flyers were all over the map; one series of flyers was based on religious pamphlets that confused a lot of people. Good times.

That's one thing I forgot to mention on the podcast, how much fun it was/is to write promotional & advertising material for flyers, websites, program books, etc. So many conventions treat it like a chore or a pain, or just parrot press releases and official bios. Quit being boring, con guides! That's why nobody reads you, you're boring!

to answer Soundmonkey44's question, I can't speak for the toy industry because I have absolutely no idea what that industry's like. I think the anime industry is going get biffed and baffed around like every other segment of the entertainment industry by the vast shakeups we're in the middle of - the DVD market crashed, people aren't buying BDs like they thought we would, viewer figures for broadcast TV are shrinking, cats and dogs living together, etc.

I think what we'll see, anime-wise, is an industry where streaming promotes the eventual DVD/BD release, and that's where the bulk of your cash is coming from. And that's not a lot of cash.

The ability to deliver another Robotech or Sailor Moon or Pokemon or even Digimon has been crippled because the very way kids watch TV is being warped beyond all understanding. The industry simply doesn't have the delivery systems any more to hit millions and millions of eyeballs all at the same time with the same message. No wonder Don Draper is an alcoholic.

OK, now I got a genuinly curious question because the collector in me is curious now.. Getting away from comics for abit. Where do you see things like the Anime & Toy industries in the states say 15-20 years from now?

The problem with that comparison is that you're comparing an item that is being made in America for Americans to how many Americans read Japanese comics. Shueisha doesnt need 100,000 Americans to buy One Piece because Millions of Japanese people are buying One Piece. Its a problem when DC Comics continually cancels comics after 6-8 issues because they didn't sell as well as one of the bat books did. I don't want DC Comics to be centered on Batman with the majority of books being about him or people who hang out with him.

Its kind of one of the reasons why I am really tired of Gundam right now. Its just rehashing ideas that Tomino had 30 years ago with nothing new to make things fresh.

Anime and Comics both need to continually experiment and evolve and not just continually rely on literally the same fans they did 20 years ago.

Well, I liked it, and enjoyed the themes you came up with each year. There was one year (maybe 2001?) where it was a retro-future 60's Pan Am thing? I still have the "I'm Awa Emi, fly me to the moon" zero-g flight attendant t-shirt around here somewhere.

Quote:

I do miss the freewheeling guerrilla-marketing of the early AWAs.

Did you guys originally have an AWA site on an "anime.net" domain? IIRC, I found you not from flyers at comic shops (I didn't discover Dr. No's until later, and they were never that into manga anyways), but from the fact that there was a Gundam site on anime.net (I think it was run by Mark Simmons, who was then at "Mac Addict" magazine?), and then happened to discover AWA on the same site? Is this in any way consistent with reality? I also think you later moved to the memorable/ridiculous URL come.to/awa.

The problem is that comics don't exist in a vacuum. Avengers made a billion dollars at the box office and comics are trending downwards? They should be selling a lot more, but then don't and that's a problem the industry has to face.

My issue with comics () is the movies are just so much more accessible. I don't really care if it's primarily superheroes for adults. Sure, variety is nice, but the movies do well enough to prove the concept of guys in spandex fighting other guys in spandex can do really well. But with the movies you just go watch The Dark Knight trilogy or the Spider-Man trilogy and be easy enough. With comics it's like exploring a huge jungle.

"Hello, I'd like to start reading comics about Awesome Character X, please."

"Why, sure young miss! There's always the main universe.. here's issue 431 which is part 7 of a company wise story arc called Crisis Wars: House of Infinite Carnage War! Oh, there's also this one, which is an alternate universe. Or this one, which is like the real one, but more gritty and extreme with lots of swearing. Then there's this one, but it was before the reboot so nothing in it happened anymore making it pointless to read. Then there's this one which is an Elseworlds and nothing like the character at all. There's this one, but it's a silly, non-continuity series. Oh, there's also this collected run where the character was actually dead for most of it, but it's an award winning run. Buuut I recommend this one: it's the start of a 2 year story arc, where the character is actually someone else in the same costume. I love it! It's over now though."

"Well, uh.."

"But if you like the movie, there's always this one. The movie was based on this story arc, but the ending was different and they cut out a bunch of stuff. Oh, and there's this one based on the cartoon from 20 years ago. It's fun but it doesn't really go anywhere. If you're gonna read the main universe one, start reading at Volume 3, Issue 373, but stop at 402, because everyone hated that writer and his metaphors about the character being an avatar of the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl. Just skip ahead until issue 432 until 443, then skip ahead again until 479 to the current issue which is fine."

I can see why the movies do better even if they're heavily dumbed down.

American manga industry probably isn't much better but that's probably more to do with piracy and censorship problems. . Just looking at the top graphic novel every month that gets reported here it usually switches form Walking Dead to Naruto every other month. That kinda tells me they're pretty close in sales and how much they sell probably isn't that much to begin with if they can constantly one up each other so often Charred Knight is correct though. Japanese comics doing poor in America isn't a big deal, but American comics doing poor in America is kinda a big thing.

Well, I liked it, and enjoyed the themes you came up with each year. There was one year (maybe 2001?) where it was a retro-future 60's Pan Am thing? I still have the "I'm Awa Emi, fly me to the moon" zero-g flight attendant t-shirt around here somewhere.

Quote:

I do miss the freewheeling guerrilla-marketing of the early AWAs.

Did you guys originally have an AWA site on an "anime.net" domain? IIRC, I found you not from flyers at comic shops (I didn't discover Dr. No's until later, and they were never that into manga anyways), but from the fact that there was a Gundam site on anime.net (I think it was run by Mark Simmons, who was then at "Mac Addict" magazine?), and then happened to discover AWA on the same site? Is this in any way consistent with reality? I also think you later moved to the memorable/ridiculous URL come.to/awa.

I honestly can't remember AWA's old web addresses. I think we did have an anime.net address for a while there. We got into the convention game right before the web became a "thing" - it was all GEnie and AOL and Fidonet via local BBS's and of course Usenet. The con was behind the curve for years with the web - we'd build a serviceable page and then move on to something else, because we were interested in running an anime con, not websites. Keep It Simple, that's the name of the game.

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